PACS, or picture archiving and communication system, is a medical imaging technology used for storing, retrieving, presenting and sharing images produced by various medical hardware modalities, such as X-ray, CT scan, MRI and ultrasound machines.

PACS technologies have been widely used in healthcare generally in hospitals and health systems for several decades. They have traditionally been associated with radiology departments, the most prolific producers of medical images.

In recent years, however, PACS technologies have also started to incorporate images produced by other departments, such as cardiology, pathology, oncology and dermatology.

Features

Web Viewing

Viewing images directly from PACS over the web can be a convenient way to share images with radiologists, referring physicians and others.

DICOM Auto-Routing

When PACS receives images, it looks for DICOM information that matches predefined criteria, then automatically sends those images to a specified DICOM destination.

EMR or RIS Integration

Most RIS, EMR and other patient management systems are non-DICOM, so several methods to integrate them with PACS have been developed. Two of the most common are HL7 and WADO.

Dictation, Transcription and Voice Recognition

In many situations it is effective to create reports directly from PACS. There are two basic ways to achieve this. The first is through digital voice dictation & second is through direct voice recognition software that integrates with PACS.

Study Lifecycle Management

With this feature imaging studies can be marked with a lifecycle status that indicates where in the process each study is. For example, a study arrives in PACS with a status of unread, then advances to read, dictated, transcribed and finally reported.

Benefits

Why are PACS systems essential to healthcare organizations? Here are five benefits they provide:

PACS’ digital images allow you to zoom in on images and manipulate them for better viewing and analysis.

PACS systems can help reduce the number of duplicate images since previous results are available electronically, improving data management efficiency.

PACS facilitates quick and easy access to patient images and reports. With PACS, tests can be performed anywhere and results can be shared electronically with other remote facilities. A PACS also allows staff to remotely view images, submit reports, archive images and transport them if necessary via portable media.

PACS allows physicians to acquire a chronological view of patients’ radiology histories, facilitating the comparison of a number of previous studies.

A PACS system has a number of add-ons available to make it even more user-friendly for staff and beneficial to patient care. Vendor neutral archives allow you to better organize your stored imaging data, with a centralized, accessible system that’s agnostic to database, operating system, image generating device and infrastructure. Peer Review allows for a seamless, efficient review of radiology cases within a physician’s daily workflow.